Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

g 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
same time my reason returned unto me, and fo.r the
glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness
returned unto me .... and I was established in my
kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me V
It would have been of surpassing interest, could we,
in this instance, have found a native record running
parallel with the statement in the Bible ; and, at one
time, it was thought by M. Oppert, that he had
detected an allusion to it on the great Cuneiform
inscription of Nebuchadnezzar in the India Office.
The progress of Assyriology, however, has shown that
this idea was erroneous. The account, therefore, in
Daniel, is at present the only record of the king's
illness and recovery.
From the death of Nebuchadnezzar, about three or
four years after his recovery, we hear no more of
Daniel for twenty-three years ; but Jeremiah's prophecies
(histories?) fill up the intervening time, and
confirm what we know from other sources, of the
descent of the kingly rule to Nebuchadnezzar's imme-
diate descendants 2 .
In his fifth chapter Daniel passes on at once to
1 Dan. iv. 34. It has been supposed that Nebuchadnezzar's illness
was a form of a rare disease called " lycanthropy," in which the patient
re'.ains his consciousness, but fancies himself an animal. It is said to
have been first noticed by Marcellus, a Greek physician of the fourth
century. Many cases have been recorded in which the inner consciousness
still remains, and, with it, the power of prayer. Dr.
Browne says that the " idea of personal identity is but rarely en-
feebled, and never is extinguished I have seen a man,
declaring himself the Saviour or St. Paul, sign himself James
Thomson, and attend public worsh'p as regularly as if the notion
of divinity had never entered his head."
2 Jerem. xxvii. 7 ; 3 Chron. xxxvi. 20.